Heck, if you want to recompile the MacOS X kernel and install your version on your laptop you are free to.
I wasn't comparing companies as such (so Apple get a bonus point for having an open source kernel - hurray!) but the platforms and market as a whole.
Apple publishes Windows drivers to make it easier to run that OS on its hardware, and linux is fully supported as well.
It's still not as easy and open as running different OSs of PCs. And also note that you're reliant on Apple keeping this stance - they've had a different attitude in the past (e.g., they specifically broke compatibility to stop people from being able to run BeOS on PPC Macs in the 90s).
And there is no application signing on the desktop
Their Macs mainly don't have the problems I list. But if Apple are going to become dominant the mobile market, it's going to be a development of the Iphone, not the Mac (the Mac isn't a mobile platform, there aren't even Mac netbooks, and it's not as hyped or popularised either).
I agree that it's a problem with phones in general, in that all of them are restrictive and locked down in comparison to PCs (although still not as bad as Apple - even my simple V980 can run applications from anywhere, without needing Motorola approval), but note that the comparison was to Microsoft, and touchscreen PCs, presumably including netbooks and tablet PCs.
This is why I'm glad netbooks have come about - they're small PCs, with all the advantages that entails, rather than larger locked-down phones. Perhaps in a few years, technology will advance such that companies can start release phone-sided PCs, and the idea of the locked-down smart phone can go away and die. But it won't if everyone's running Apple.
And you surely have plenty of examples backing that quote up, of where scientific discoveries were known centuries in advance by people who merely theolog-ised about it. (What does that involve anyway? Talking to "God"?)
is the same junk as multitouch , they might seem cool, but they aint productive.
Indeed - I remember seeing hype about touchscreens on computer monitors back in the 80s or early 80s on Tomorrow's World. But much like videophone and computer voice input, few people actually want them.
They have obvious advantages on a small device like phones, hence the recent popularity of touchscreen on Blackberrys and Nokias, but I would be surprised if this came commonplace on laptops and especially desktops (outside of niche markets such as graphics).
So how come everyone's praising Apple for multitouch? Surely it's much simpler to design interfaces that only need one kind of click, right?
(And I think "Press this button" is much less complicated "Well you have to do this gesture with your fingers"... Even things like drag and drop, computer newbies typically find difficult in my experience.)
Because making products that are intuitive and easy to use is damn difficult. Those who don't understand this love to hate on companies like Apple.
I do understand it. In my opinion, Itunes and Quicktime are the number one offenders of bad UIs for Windows software. Furthermore when I think a product has a good UI, I can back that up with objective reasons and arguments about why it's better.
It's those who love to love Apple who think that UI design is some undefinable unexplainable quality (which means they can assert something has a good UI as a matter of faith). Those who don't understand how UIs work love to love to hate on people who criticise Apple.
You should learn from PIBM's reply. Whilst you argue with vague undefined concepts about being "integral", or use special pleading that features don't matter because "form" is better, and asserting examples such as WiFi switches without explaining why, note how PIBM responds with an actual objective example of a workflow where he thinks something is better.
Your reply then just repeats the assertion "they get in the way of usability".
The fact is that if the situation was reversed, you'd still be arguing that the Apple way was better (I can hear it now: "On a Mac, you just press a button and it Just Works. On PCs, I have to hunt go looking for it"). Indeed, just for bonus points, you do try to make that argument, even though it doesn't apply.
If the option on OS X is more easily found, then surely the same argument applies - "someone might think they've broken their WiFi because they accidentally clicked it".
The sales figures suggest otherwise. It's selling okay, but there are far more popular phone companies.
interface is natural, easy to master, and effective. All truly revolutionary technologies have these aspects.
Give me five examples of a workflow that is easier on the Iphone's UI, compared with all other phones on the market? No wait - give me one? It's an honest question, but everytime I ask this simple question, I don't get an answer, other than people retreating into claims that it's fundamentally unanswerable, you just have to accept it as true. (It's like the "God exists" of the tech world.)
E.g., if I had some text that I wanted to copy into another text field, how would I achieve this with the interface?
Or, how straightforward is it to receive an MMS from someone? Or use my phone for tethering? Or install and run an application from a non-Apple website?
But neither the engineers at Microsoft nor the engineers who build OSS software interfaces have the first clue as to how to design for usability, so I hold very little hope.
I don't disagree, but having used Apple's Itunes and Quicktime, I still hold very little hope. There are other companies out there though, who for some reason are mainly ignored by Slashdot news coverage (e.g., RIM, Nokia).
More than one finger-click? Sounds a bit too complicated. Surely a single method of finger tapping is better, otherwise people will always be asking "Do I tap with my first finger or my second finger?"
Will Microsoft win share with their touch screens? Consider: Apple has a touch screen on iPods and a heavy bank of apps that are all touchable.
Indeed, which is why I find it very worrying that everyone seems to be rooting for Apple.
Consider, what would you prefer the marketplace of mobile computing (phones, handhelds, netbooks etc) to be in ten years' time?
* A locked down platform from one company that has a hardware and OS monopoly on the market, where applications can only be run with the approval of that company, where many hardware features are disable unless you hack the device, and where the the architecture of the hardware is incompatible with laptops and desktops.
* Platforms that basically operate with the same openness of PCs today - anyone can make the hardware, which are compatible with each other and PCs by an open standard, where anyone can write or run whatever applications they choose. You can run a variety of OSs on them, including open source ones - and even if it turns out that a certain company has an OS monopoly here too, that might be a shame, but at least they're not stopping you doing anything else.
And to think that Slashdot was once a place where people supported and promoted open systems.
Indeed, I'm very surprised to see this story at all, normally you won't hear about a new development in technology on Slashdot until Apple does it (especially when it comes to mobile phones). Although I note it still has to start with the irrelevant qualifier "Apple Inc. may still be coy about whether it plans to launch a touch-screen tablet computer this year". So? With any other company, rumours about unreleased products are looked down upon as vaporware, not hyped up and used to advertise the company even when though don't have a product.
Are we going to preface every computer game story with "3D Realms may still be coy about whether it plans to launch its FPS game this year"?
When they release it, we can have a story about it (which is still more than most computer companies get for their new products).
Sometimes it backfires though. Anyone remember the Mac Air? Thought not. But at the time, there was loads of hype of it being a "cool" thing, because they'd produced a laptop that was a millimetre smaller than other laptops, at only several times the price.
And then the netbooks came out of nowhere, offering much smaller devices at a fraction of the price, and we never heard about the Air again.
He's not saying a company reduces its own prices if they advertise - that's a straw man argument you're making.
What he said was, new technology requires early adopters to help pay for it, and then that helps drive down the price. You need examples for "Whens the last time" - you seriously doubt that prices of new initially expensive technology proucts have fallen?
You can almost do this with the iPhone through syncing and with apps like Bento. Still not docking the phone, exactly, but it's close. But not quite there yet.
Practically every phone on the market offers syncing and so on. I don't see how this is "almost" the completely different theoretical feature of plugging your phone into a monitor, keyboard and mouse. No phone that I know has this feature - there's no "almost" or "but it's close" about it.
If anything, the pendulum might swing backwards as competitors try to ape 80% of the iPhone's functionality at half the price.
Swing back? It never swung that way. Firstly, I'll assume you meant smart phone in general - there are others beside the Iphone, you know.
Despite what some might think from reading all the Iphone coverage that Slashdot gives, by far most phones sold are still the cheaper ones (e.g., see http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=6836 ).
It's also long been the case - long before your Iphone was thought of - that "feature" phones have "aped" most of the functionality of so-called "smartphones". Things such as Internet access, email, running programs, are now commonplace on all but the most cheapest and basic of phones . As technology progresses, I can't help thinking that the distinction between smart and non-smart will become even less meaningful (I'm glad someone agrees with me). Pretty soon the "smart" phone category will only exist from a marketing point of view, for companies like Apple who want to inflate their market share by reporting their share of an arbitrarily restricted one, rather than the mobile market as a whole.
And indeed, I'm curious you refer solely to the Iphone, as it doesn't really fit neatly in the smartphone category, in that it lacks several features that even "feature" phones have (one might just as well say that the Iphone tries to ape 80% of a Motorola's functionality at twice the price). In the smartphone market, there are plenty of other phones doing 100% of functionality, and more. Don't expect to read about it on Appledot, though.
10% sounds great: 6 million people in the UK, 30 million in the US, etc.
I suspect the number who download is actually far greater - whilst sadly the numbers who will actively protest in any way that matters about copyright law will be far lower.
If doesn't matter how many other people are pirating, the point is his legitimate use is blocked by the company he's paying money to allegedly deliver him Internet access.
Or if you want a measure that takes size into account, then by all means divide it by population (and watch the US come out even higher compared with, say, China).
Not only does a straw man get modded insightful, but why does the parent get modded troll merely for pointing this out, and having a viewpoint that someone disagrees with? If you disagree with him, come out and say it, rather than hiding behind the abudance of mod points you evidently receive.
(I don't know if it's just me, but it seems moderation has really gone downhill recently. I'm tempted to just set all my modifiers to 0, as they're no longer a meaningful way of filtering actual trolls. Who's getting all the mod points?)
Amount per population would be a more useful measure to take into account different sizes of country. But since China has about three times as many people as the US, then this just makes the difference between the US and China even greater.
Ah, it's funny to watch you now back-peddle. Yes, the question of how much a % of GDP to spend on an issue is a matter of debate - you might say 5% is fine, the OP thought it should be less than that.
That's a completely different claim to your original argument that reducing spending would mean the US is incapable of running a "serious" military, or dealing with any of the threats that the US may face - for that, percentage of GDP is not a very meaningful measure.
If you say "sure the usa could spend less", then I see it turns out you agree with the OP after all, because that's what he was saying.
Straw man. No one is saying "because the world is a pleasant campfire singalong, and no ones means any one else any wrong", "its a world of love and good will" nor are they saying "no need for a serious military". The issue was less spending, not none at all. For heaven's sake, please try to at least respond to what people say. But I guess it's easier to get modded up if you make up a point of view to argue against?
If, e.g., a certain invasion didn't happen, there'd be hundreds of billions of dollars extra to use for worrying about that other stuff.
And what, precisely, are you going to do with extra military spending in response to other countries having nukes? Invade all of them before they get them? Good luck with that. Invade them after they get them? Yeah right. Have nukes as a deterrent? The US already has them.
Slashdot Mirror
Heck, if you want to recompile the MacOS X kernel and install your version on your laptop you are free to.
I wasn't comparing companies as such (so Apple get a bonus point for having an open source kernel - hurray!) but the platforms and market as a whole.
Apple publishes Windows drivers to make it easier to run that OS on its hardware, and linux is fully supported as well.
It's still not as easy and open as running different OSs of PCs. And also note that you're reliant on Apple keeping this stance - they've had a different attitude in the past (e.g., they specifically broke compatibility to stop people from being able to run BeOS on PPC Macs in the 90s).
And there is no application signing on the desktop
Their Macs mainly don't have the problems I list. But if Apple are going to become dominant the mobile market, it's going to be a development of the Iphone, not the Mac (the Mac isn't a mobile platform, there aren't even Mac netbooks, and it's not as hyped or popularised either).
I agree that it's a problem with phones in general, in that all of them are restrictive and locked down in comparison to PCs (although still not as bad as Apple - even my simple V980 can run applications from anywhere, without needing Motorola approval), but note that the comparison was to Microsoft, and touchscreen PCs, presumably including netbooks and tablet PCs.
This is why I'm glad netbooks have come about - they're small PCs, with all the advantages that entails, rather than larger locked-down phones. Perhaps in a few years, technology will advance such that companies can start release phone-sided PCs, and the idea of the locked-down smart phone can go away and die. But it won't if everyone's running Apple.
And you surely have plenty of examples backing that quote up, of where scientific discoveries were known centuries in advance by people who merely theolog-ised about it. (What does that involve anyway? Talking to "God"?)
is the same junk as multitouch , they might seem cool, but they aint productive.
Indeed - I remember seeing hype about touchscreens on computer monitors back in the 80s or early 80s on Tomorrow's World. But much like videophone and computer voice input, few people actually want them.
They have obvious advantages on a small device like phones, hence the recent popularity of touchscreen on Blackberrys and Nokias, but I would be surprised if this came commonplace on laptops and especially desktops (outside of niche markets such as graphics).
So how come everyone's praising Apple for multitouch? Surely it's much simpler to design interfaces that only need one kind of click, right?
(And I think "Press this button" is much less complicated "Well you have to do this gesture with your fingers"... Even things like drag and drop, computer newbies typically find difficult in my experience.)
Because making products that are intuitive and easy to use is damn difficult. Those who don't understand this love to hate on companies like Apple.
I do understand it. In my opinion, Itunes and Quicktime are the number one offenders of bad UIs for Windows software. Furthermore when I think a product has a good UI, I can back that up with objective reasons and arguments about why it's better.
It's those who love to love Apple who think that UI design is some undefinable unexplainable quality (which means they can assert something has a good UI as a matter of faith). Those who don't understand how UIs work love to love to hate on people who criticise Apple.
You should learn from PIBM's reply. Whilst you argue with vague undefined concepts about being "integral", or use special pleading that features don't matter because "form" is better, and asserting examples such as WiFi switches without explaining why, note how PIBM responds with an actual objective example of a workflow where he thinks something is better.
Your reply then just repeats the assertion "they get in the way of usability".
The fact is that if the situation was reversed, you'd still be arguing that the Apple way was better (I can hear it now: "On a Mac, you just press a button and it Just Works. On PCs, I have to hunt go looking for it"). Indeed, just for bonus points, you do try to make that argument, even though it doesn't apply.
If the option on OS X is more easily found, then surely the same argument applies - "someone might think they've broken their WiFi because they accidentally clicked it".
Windows is also very successful, this must also be because Microsoft design great products that people actually want to use, right?
iPhone really took off
The sales figures suggest otherwise. It's selling okay, but there are far more popular phone companies.
interface is natural, easy to master, and effective. All truly revolutionary technologies have these aspects.
Give me five examples of a workflow that is easier on the Iphone's UI, compared with all other phones on the market? No wait - give me one? It's an honest question, but everytime I ask this simple question, I don't get an answer, other than people retreating into claims that it's fundamentally unanswerable, you just have to accept it as true. (It's like the "God exists" of the tech world.)
E.g., if I had some text that I wanted to copy into another text field, how would I achieve this with the interface?
Or, how straightforward is it to receive an MMS from someone? Or use my phone for tethering? Or install and run an application from a non-Apple website?
But neither the engineers at Microsoft nor the engineers who build OSS software interfaces have the first clue as to how to design for usability, so I hold very little hope.
I don't disagree, but having used Apple's Itunes and Quicktime, I still hold very little hope. There are other companies out there though, who for some reason are mainly ignored by Slashdot news coverage (e.g., RIM, Nokia).
More than one finger-click? Sounds a bit too complicated. Surely a single method of finger tapping is better, otherwise people will always be asking "Do I tap with my first finger or my second finger?"
Will Microsoft win share with their touch screens? Consider: Apple has a touch screen on iPods and a heavy bank of apps that are all touchable.
Indeed, which is why I find it very worrying that everyone seems to be rooting for Apple.
Consider, what would you prefer the marketplace of mobile computing (phones, handhelds, netbooks etc) to be in ten years' time?
* A locked down platform from one company that has a hardware and OS monopoly on the market, where applications can only be run with the approval of that company, where many hardware features are disable unless you hack the device, and where the the architecture of the hardware is incompatible with laptops and desktops.
* Platforms that basically operate with the same openness of PCs today - anyone can make the hardware, which are compatible with each other and PCs by an open standard, where anyone can write or run whatever applications they choose. You can run a variety of OSs on them, including open source ones - and even if it turns out that a certain company has an OS monopoly here too, that might be a shame, but at least they're not stopping you doing anything else.
And to think that Slashdot was once a place where people supported and promoted open systems.
Indeed, I'm very surprised to see this story at all, normally you won't hear about a new development in technology on Slashdot until Apple does it (especially when it comes to mobile phones). Although I note it still has to start with the irrelevant qualifier "Apple Inc. may still be coy about whether it plans to launch a touch-screen tablet computer this year". So? With any other company, rumours about unreleased products are looked down upon as vaporware, not hyped up and used to advertise the company even when though don't have a product.
Are we going to preface every computer game story with "3D Realms may still be coy about whether it plans to launch its FPS game this year"?
When they release it, we can have a story about it (which is still more than most computer companies get for their new products).
Sometimes it backfires though. Anyone remember the Mac Air? Thought not. But at the time, there was loads of hype of it being a "cool" thing, because they'd produced a laptop that was a millimetre smaller than other laptops, at only several times the price.
And then the netbooks came out of nowhere, offering much smaller devices at a fraction of the price, and we never heard about the Air again.
Good for you. And the great thing about our society is that you are free to make that choice.
What would you do btw if that great invention cost money to develop, then produce?
And can you think of an actual example of an invention where the creator had the choice of those two possibilities?
Well done for completely missing his point.
He's not saying a company reduces its own prices if they advertise - that's a straw man argument you're making.
What he said was, new technology requires early adopters to help pay for it, and then that helps drive down the price. You need examples for "Whens the last time" - you seriously doubt that prices of new initially expensive technology proucts have fallen?
You can almost do this with the iPhone through syncing and with apps like Bento. Still not docking the phone, exactly, but it's close. But not quite there yet.
Practically every phone on the market offers syncing and so on. I don't see how this is "almost" the completely different theoretical feature of plugging your phone into a monitor, keyboard and mouse. No phone that I know has this feature - there's no "almost" or "but it's close" about it.
(typing again because /. ate my post)
If anything, the pendulum might swing backwards as competitors try to ape 80% of the iPhone's functionality at half the price.
Swing back? It never swung that way. Firstly, I'll assume you meant smart phone in general - there are others beside the Iphone, you know.
Despite what some might think from reading all the Iphone coverage that Slashdot gives, by far most phones sold are still the cheaper ones (e.g., see http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=6836 ).
It's also long been the case - long before your Iphone was thought of - that "feature" phones have "aped" most of the functionality of so-called "smartphones". Things such as Internet access, email, running programs, are now commonplace on all but the most cheapest and basic of phones . As technology progresses, I can't help thinking that the distinction between smart and non-smart will become even less meaningful (I'm glad someone agrees with me). Pretty soon the "smart" phone category will only exist from a marketing point of view, for companies like Apple who want to inflate their market share by reporting their share of an arbitrarily restricted one, rather than the mobile market as a whole.
And indeed, I'm curious you refer solely to the Iphone, as it doesn't really fit neatly in the smartphone category, in that it lacks several features that even "feature" phones have (one might just as well say that the Iphone tries to ape 80% of a Motorola's functionality at twice the price). In the smartphone market, there are plenty of other phones doing 100% of functionality, and more. Don't expect to read about it on Appledot, though.
10% sounds great: 6 million people in the UK, 30 million in the US, etc.
I suspect the number who download is actually far greater - whilst sadly the numbers who will actively protest in any way that matters about copyright law will be far lower.
Nice straw man.
If doesn't matter how many other people are pirating, the point is his legitimate use is blocked by the company he's paying money to allegedly deliver him Internet access.
And similarly, the answer to the question "How quick can someone run a mile?" is of course about four minutes.
but the usa ranks only 27th in military spending per GDP
Fixed that for you. And the relevance is?
You may be interested in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures#Chart_by_country_or_organization .
Or if you want a measure that takes size into account, then by all means divide it by population (and watch the US come out even higher compared with, say, China).
Not only does a straw man get modded insightful, but why does the parent get modded troll merely for pointing this out, and having a viewpoint that someone disagrees with? If you disagree with him, come out and say it, rather than hiding behind the abudance of mod points you evidently receive.
(I don't know if it's just me, but it seems moderation has really gone downhill recently. I'm tempted to just set all my modifiers to 0, as they're no longer a meaningful way of filtering actual trolls. Who's getting all the mod points?)
Percentage of GDP still isn't useful.
Amount per population would be a more useful measure to take into account different sizes of country. But since China has about three times as many people as the US, then this just makes the difference between the US and China even greater.
Ah, it's funny to watch you now back-peddle. Yes, the question of how much a % of GDP to spend on an issue is a matter of debate - you might say 5% is fine, the OP thought it should be less than that.
That's a completely different claim to your original argument that reducing spending would mean the US is incapable of running a "serious" military, or dealing with any of the threats that the US may face - for that, percentage of GDP is not a very meaningful measure.
If you say "sure the usa could spend less", then I see it turns out you agree with the OP after all, because that's what he was saying.
Straw man. No one is saying "because the world is a pleasant campfire singalong, and no ones means any one else any wrong", "its a world of love and good will" nor are they saying "no need for a serious military". The issue was less spending, not none at all. For heaven's sake, please try to at least respond to what people say. But I guess it's easier to get modded up if you make up a point of view to argue against?
If, e.g., a certain invasion didn't happen, there'd be hundreds of billions of dollars extra to use for worrying about that other stuff.
And what, precisely, are you going to do with extra military spending in response to other countries having nukes? Invade all of them before they get them? Good luck with that. Invade them after they get them? Yeah right. Have nukes as a deterrent? The US already has them.
I believe normal procedure upon encountering a mine is to jump two hundred feet into the air and scatter yourself over a wide area.
What's an intrinsic value of software then?